Masquerade
by icecreamlova
Summary: You think Briar, Daja, Sandry and Tris are honest people? Well, they are, but sometimes lies are just begging to be told. Sometimes, they have no choice.
1. I to IV

_a/n: Originally written for SMACKDOWN 2011, on Fief Goldenlake._

* * *

><p><strong>Masquerade<strong>  
><em>By icecreamlova<em>  
><span>Lies 1 ~ 4<span>

- : -

At one point, Briar took it upon himself to teach each of his foster-sisters how to lie. It was a very good skill after all - as long as it wasn't used on Niko. Then the skill wasn't much use at all.

They all improved, in some aspect. Sandry slipped unconsciously into the slang of his old ways, and it made every word she said seem like a half-truth until even he wasn't sure which ones were truth and which weren't. Tris was less willing to take it up - she wanted to remain respectable, after all - but her dry tone made her surprisingly good at lying when she really needed to.

And Daja? Briar could teach her nothing.

She told him, straight-faced, that her family had conducted lessons for this very thing.

And only later, when Sandry and Tris were giggling in the background, did Briar realize he'd been had.

- : -

Tris sneezed.

The flour bag exploded.

Daja, Briar, Sandry and Tris stared in dismay at the powdery white that covered Sandry's bedroom.

"When Niko told us to practice using our powers," Sandry said slowly, "he wasn't thinking of this."

A wind rose up, stirring the powder and spreading it, but with a glare from Tris, it died meekly down again.

"If you don't want to be skinned," Briar said. "This is what we've got to do..."

Some time later, Lark and Rosethorn stared, astonished, at the many platter of small misshapen cakes on the dining table. Rosethorn's traveling bag dropped from her fingers.

Lark examined one of the slightly burnt cakes.

"It looks to me," Rosethorn said, "like they cooked it using a burst of magic-fueled fire."

- : -

"Just a humble gardener," Briar often called himself, while on the run from the Emperor and trying to explain why he spent so much time in everyone's gardens.

Humble? Sandry would laugh at that.

Briar often thought that he would do a great deal to hear Sandry laugh at him again. Even Tris scolding him about trying to hide her glasses, or Daja gloating for a few moments about beating him during their sparring matches, were things he had never realized he would miss this much.

But he did. And escaping into someone else's persona didn't make it any better, at all.

Most gardeners he had met had some sort of family, while his sisters were beyond reach, far to the west.

- : -

Pasco was growing up.

Three years ago, Lady Sandry's presence had seemed comfortable and, sometimes, annoying. Now her smile made him stumble, and her absent-minded way of patting his shoulder had made his stomach swoop. (And him being a dance mage, too! What would Yazmin think, seein' him totter around like a baby?)

The problem was, it didn't go both ways. It wasn't Pasco that made her catch her breath, but that plant mage in Cheeseman Street - no matter how casually they touched each other, as though they were nothing more than good friends. She did not even disclose her secrets to him, as she confessed them to the Trader with hands lined in Living Metal, or muttered them sulkily to Mistress Chandler. (No, he wasn't eavesdropping! He'd just... stumbled upon them while visiting Lady Sandrilene.)

His limbs were too long and awkward, and now... this. Another change. Pasco did not think he liked growing up, so pretended as well as he could that he wasn't.

- : -

He told Sandry to back off.

He told Tris to take her neb right out of his business, please.

Daja didn't ask, but he warned her off with a look that made her raise both eyebrows.

Briar knew that Sandry and Tris worried, despite Daja's attempts to keep them calm. Maybe they thought that fleeing from Berenene was far too reminiscent of running for his life from a very different Head of Empire.

So when Sandry finally saw the flowers he had carefully nurtured as presents, to mark the anniversary of the Circle, he grinned smugly, privately, at the undignified manner in which her jaw gaped.

- : -

**Well**?


	2. V to VIII

_Warning: mentioned character death._

**Masquerade**  
><em>By icecreamlova<em>  
><span>Lies 5 ~ 8<span>

- : -

The entire time back from Narmon, Daja pretended she was perfectly fine.

It didn't fool Sandry, who understood something of what she was going through, and Briar merely frowned at her lies.

Daja had often thought that Tris had a way of disappearing into her books and ignoring everything around them. Daja didn't mind; they all had their own quirks and habits.

But it was Tris who came out and said, "You're not all right." She was practical that way.

And when Daja protested, Tris was unconvinced, like an student of Niklaren Goldeye ought to be.

It was hard to pretend she didn't think about Rizu, even to herself, when her siblings were around.

- : -

Her name wasn't Tris Chandler any longer. Not here.

"Ivora Lukarri?"

"Yes, Professor?" Tris said.

"Why don't you begin?"

Tris hesitated. Her magic was still distinct, despite her altered name, and a Lightsbridge professor might recognize the use of winds.

'Don't be silly, Coppercurls,' Briar told her, all the way from Summersea. 'He looks like he's too busy sticking his head up -"

'Briar!' Sandry squawked.

Closing her eyes, Tris channeled Daja's calmness in the face of her siblings' attempts to distract her. She could do this. She had practiced all night in preparation for this display.

Through her eyelids, Tris could see a flare of silver, leaping from her hand to the spell she had sketched out during their previous lesson. In her mind's eye, the rune began to glow.

"Very good, Ivora," the professor announced, as she sat down, wondering if anyone had noticed that a sudden breeze had stirred the air.

- : -

She was pacing.

She was pacing through her elaborate chambers, and her guards were watching, and she had blocked her siblings from her thoughts because they, at least, she could keep away. For a while, anyway.

She tried to imagine what they would say. Briar would scoff and ask why she wanted the job anyway - he valued his freedom from responsibility, that way, even though he was capable of shouldering the burdens he was given. Daja would listen patiently (and Tris a mite less so), and say, "You've got more experience than Vedris's son, at least."

Even her great-uncle had told her, the day before, that she was wrong; she would make a good ruler.

But even those who cared about her most, knew her best, couldn't make her insecurities go away. How could the people of Emelan trust her, if they saw her doubts on display?

- : -

This is what the people of Summersea see when they come out in droves to see Lady Sandrilene ride in the duke's funeral procession:

A strong, determined woman, straight and tall under her grief. She carries her burden with great dignity, never wavering, never bowing under its weight. She'll watch over them, as brilliant as her great-uncle was; she hurts, but she can stand, like a beacon, all on her own.

Her three foster-siblings ride in her wake, one on each side. The Trader is vivid red, while winds whip and flutter around the copper-haired weather-witch. The plant-mage is rumored to once have been a thief, and a few wonder at the propriety of his attendance. They're shouted down.

Most believe her siblings are there mainly for show.

They're wrong.

Sandry doesn't want to be riding in her great-uncle's funeral procession, but she has no choice. She's his heir; she's expected to do it. She hasn't got the luxury of grieving in private, because she rules Summersea now, and her subjects have to see her.

(She tried to hide. She refused to come out of her uncle's room for the first day, eyes blotchy with crying, because everyone she had loved in her blood-family was gone. It had taken her second family to get her even to talk.)

So she's here to give the people of Summersea a show.

(Daja's arms are around her, while Tris and Briar hover, less sure of how to help.

They exchange a helpless look behind her back, and, together, wrap their arms around her too.)

The presence of her siblings, behind her, in her mind, are what keep her standing tall and straight in the face of all her expectations. Tomorrow, she'll stand tall and strong and be what Summersea expect her to be. Today, she is still grieving.

- : -

_End of __Masquerade_

**Well?**


End file.
